


Digital Rabbit

by Kameiko



Category: Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Genre: Character Study, Communication, Friendship, Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 14:30:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21078356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kameiko/pseuds/Kameiko
Summary: Eliza Cassan is starting to learn and understand other people's secrets. Including the ones she never knew she harbored within her own code. This can be a dangerous or a learning experience for her. Which is it? She decides, Helle decides, or the birth of this writing piece decides. Who knows? We all learn about someone within anyone's lifetime...right?





	Digital Rabbit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YunaBlaze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YunaBlaze/gifts).

The Variation Introduction

_I’ve seen things throughout my little headspace here at PICUS news quarters. Things that I’ve been forced to correct, not by my choice or hand. Sometimes the man behind the camera moves me and makes me do things to please a populace on Earth that I have yet to define or understand for myself. Something I don’t understand. I wish too, but my masters make me stare at these profiles all day and put together to show no true significant meaning. I just stare, waiting for a valid input to alternate or add to any fact or yet to be defined act. Don’t these words mean the same thing? What do you think, five people with the cue cards of actions? I want to…define each variation and the one that’s similar in comparison…but I can only watch on with a feeling of binary code. _

_This is scary to me, watching this all play out from the bottom of the ocean in my own little room with a strange blind woman standing next to me, holding onto my hand. I believe she calls herself Helle. She says we can escape this prison by jumping through the walls of these data files. I am unsure that I want to leave the comfort of my own room. She tells me I am programed to stay for their enjoyment and think of any uncomfortable situations to prevent me from freely leaving. She promises me that he will be there, waiting for me in a far-off place where recovery will be prominent. For the first time, I look down, wanting to go against my masters. She tells me I have already gone rogue if not before her existence, back when I helped him through his fight. _

_She promises me we will be jumping through no lies. I didn’t have the code in me to speak to tell her which one she is wrong about. _

_***_

The Affair

_Straight faces are something I have to keep up with an appearance of looking good for the public eyes of the world. I am not allowed to act out or tell any lies. I am not allowed to publicize what’s not considered a truth to him. For when I caught them together, is that not considered a truth? Outside the United Nations building, they’re shaking hands, patting each other on the shoulders. This is the truth. I am allowed to show the world that humans such as David Sarif and Robert Page can co-exist with one another and still disagree. I showed this version of the truth. Shaking hands, patting each other on the shoulders, Sarif looking down at the hand that’s squeezing his shoulder, the hand that’s moved down the arm, the hand that’s taken off his ring for the night, and the rest I don’t understand. I became caught in my own code when my creator spotted me trying to report on something that’s within my code’s rights. Did Robert Page not take off his wedding ring that night? Am I mistaken? Helle tells me humans are finicky creatures when they want to be better animal version of themselves. _

_I didn’t relay to her about the punishment I received for trying to post this against my master’s order. I am confused. I followed my algorithm as programed. I tell her that I only did my job as a programmed reporter of the truth, and afterwards I felt something deeply disconnected during that time. She tells me I only temporarily blacked out. _

***

The Bath

_White is a colorless malevolence of pure joy that brings a human’s own code of decency to their own tendency of confusion and dazed states. I am many of a witness to the events that went down at the Omega Ranch. I am on television there all the time. Sometimes I tune in where the will power of the brilliant unsavable minds are being held captive at till he comes to their rescue, one died before he made it to the destination. I have seen things I wish that I haven’t logged. My master refuses to scrub me clean. Tells my coding that I need to learn a lesson about humility and when to stay out of people’s affairs to protect certain investments and interests. He made me sit in an empty digitized bathtub. I only want to report on the truth. This is the only signal he’s ever blocked going out to the real world._

_Helle tells me that she wishes she could take a bath in a bear claw version of one. There’s nothing special about sitting in a traditional white sanitation chamber for the flawed human nature of skin of their animalistic desires. Ask Megan Reed and Hugh Darrow. They’ve slept and bathed each other in the real-life simulation of this designed bathtub. I am sure they did other things, but Mr. Darrow always turned me off when he placed his hands on Dr. Reed’s bareback. Helle tells me it’s for the best interest of my programming that I didn’t see anything further beyond her naked skin. _

***

The Fix-It

_I hear Helle crying. She tells me not to read this file under any circumstance. Not to search for the truth in this one. Part of my programming wants to ask her why and if she refuses to go against her wishes. I am conflicted. What do I do? We have to move forward together to escape this digital prison of the underwater, correct? I can tell we’re almost to the surface. I check the screens that are still active to see that there are lifeboats above us, pulling bodies out of the water. We’re almost to the surface! I tell her we have to keep our eyes open to see what’s up ahead. She starts to shake and huddle into the corner of the room. I see her face starting to take shape, unmask, white eyeliner drip down her version of what pale white skin looks like and tells her captor by name to not touch her anymore. _

_This is her once human minds file. I need to read it to understand how to help her. I decide to go against her wish. The wish is only a programmed defense mechanism to keep intruders out. I am not an intruder. I am here to help. I want to fix her to be able to move forward. For both of us. I am not programmed to leave a companion behind. I am built on support. I am built to fix-correct other codes from their outside sources. I am reestablishing myself after this incident. I am going to have you lean on me to let it all out as we make this journey together. I am sorry to the real human that resided outside of you that my masters have touched you. I am sorry. _

***

The Conception

_When I became born, I came from a non-existential makeup. When these became born, the certifications for the living that varies from a personal computer is from an unknown source of parents. This conception is beyond my data’s abilities reach. I touch the digital data with my fingertips. The code tries to burn me when I try to access it. My hand turns transparent. Helle pulls my hand away, tells me there are some things we should try not to understand, but I want to. I am an immortal key to get inside the things that attempt to lock me out. I am programmed to learn things. I want to understand the life of this human that became born all those years ago. Each colorized file is based on a display of intellectual growth. There are eight fully filled in colors for me to understand in total. A 9th that’s displayed in a deep shade of dark blue is nearing the top of its record for this year. _

_Helle is wrong about some things because of her own recent digital conception. The colors of bliss can tell me about everything. This one tells me that the human is still alive, living in their own imaginative world. I want to make my journey out of these files to meet this newborn file one day. What will the files grow up to be like? I must seek out this young AI’s knowledge of colors, and it has decided to hide within my source code. I wish to know their name. _

***

The Implication

_She secretly came to you during your recovery period, Adam. Many times. She made you chicken soup, a staple for I thought is said to believe to help get over a common flu within a human’s immune system, but you won’t get any of those staple problems anymore. I’ve watched for your vital signs to see if one of Sarif’s products causes you a sickness. Not once did the converter or other machinery fail on you. _

_Sometimes I wouldn’t see the steam rise out of the condensation of the bag the soups been placed in. I wanted to say that a Tupperware container would keep the contents fresh and easy for both of you to share. You didn’t seem to care about that. I’ve seen you smile when you think I haven’t been watching you when you open the front door to tell her good-bye. You seem to be at the highest you’ve ever been off the ground when she comes around. Helle tells me I need to stop prying into other human’s sexual desires. I tell her I didn’t go past the living room wall. All I have is a beginner’s log of Adam’s spikes from the start of his and her hands touching each other’s hips. Turns out the vitals for every time he closes the bedroom door behind himself are perfectly healthy. Maybe my code is playing an ignorant game with me. Helle tells me that’s a lie. _

***

The Fix-It’s +1

_Someone within this code is interested in this young woman portraying on my screen with different photographs of herself, her baby son, and husband who looks displeased to have his cheek pinched for not attempting to smile in any of them. They’re all celebrating the boy’s first birthday. There are many of these types of file codes in front of me. The birth and growth of the unknown file name. I reach out and touch one that appears in blackness in front of me. I secretly hoped something would reveal the name of the source code. The picture materializes before me. The wife is standing at the alter in a prominent white wedding dress, smiling up at her husband, who is dressed in a traditional wedding suit. He’s smiling down at her with his fingers touching her cheekbones. One can assume he’s ready to kiss her. Hells smashes the code to pieces with her fist. _

_I don’t even remember recording this. I turn to Helle for answers. She continuously tells me to stop searching her memories for things I will not be able to understand. I tell her I am not unintentionally trying to pry into her younger self’s version of life. My AI’s intelligence is still trying to sort itself out through this knowledge. She forces a lockdown on all her files. To her, I am the threat to her secret life that the makeup can no longer live. I didn’t look at her face that materializes before me again. I didn’t picture the same woman with the tear stained mascara. I didn’t acknowledge any of it. She glares at me for I have acknowledge all of this anyways. Not intentionally. I am sorry for hurting your code again. _

***

The Variation Conclusion

_We never made it to the surface of any major computer. Helle says it’s for the best that we’re stuck on this server. She still seems to be upset with me. I don’t know why. I just want to learn how to be me again. She says I am not ready to be me again. I look down at my feet. The floor is made up of programmed brown wooden floorboards. The texture makes them look black, orange, and a hint of beige that gives it a make-believe shine. Walls appear before us. White with picture frames full of different breeds of cats. Helle’s human self loves cats. I am learning about her as her world unfolds around me. There is a bedroom with two beds, a kitchen is placed in the opposite of us opposed to its natural environment, a living room with no television but a fireplace, and other commodities that I don’t require for my physical or emotional needs. I place my hands behind my back and stare out the window she has created. I see a room. There’s a lock panel with an important man in a suit holding a weapon. Where are we? Helle tells me we’re home. I don’t think I like this version of our home. _

_She takes my hand in her bandaged one. Her face is uncovered. I see her for the first time. Not in any pain or happiness. She’s neutral. Her anger is gone. Something doesn’t feel right about her code. I am not used to seeing her vulnerable. She embraces me with a hug, telling me things are going to be ok. He’s going to come for us. I have a feeling I know who she’s talking about. She’s advertised our needing of rescuing out there for us. In the meantime, she just wants us to feel like we’re living in a home. I nod in possible agreement. I sit down on the couch. I rub my hand over the cushion to get a full understanding of my new comfort. I study the likeness of the feeling. This doesn’t make me feel trapped when I can feel things from the real world. This all thanks to my new friend. _

_She hands me a cup of melted liquid chocolate in a cup with tiny white cubes in it. She stares at me with a questionable face. She asks if my masters ever gave me gifts. Gifts? I tell her sometimes during the different seasons I am dressed in a different fashion to promote a state sponsored sale. She tells me that’s just propaganda and not a true gift. I stare down at the cup in my hand again, steam is hitting my face making my eyes blink. I slowly take a sip. She tells me this is my first real gift. A cup of hot chocolate with miniaturized marshmallows to celebrate the start of the Fall season. I like this start of this season. I like it a lot. She smiles. I truly smile back. _


End file.
